Biofuels are not the way to go

In the rush for energy independence, U.S. policy isn’t helping. Don’t get me wrong: I strongly believe that we need to stop using Arab oil for diplomatic reasons as well as environmental ones. But government policies put in place to combat the use of oil are hurting the United States and rest of the world more than they help.

During the past few years, our government has begun subsidizing the conversion of land to grow corn for biofuel. According to a study published in the journal Science, biofuels may actually be worse for the environment than the fossil fuels they are trying to replace.

Forests and grasslands are more effective at absorbing carbon than the biofuel crops that are replacing them. Trees are cut down in the name of saving the environment, but the claim is fraudulent. All the carbon that has been stored in those trees for years is released into the atmosphere when the trees die.

It would take 93 years for ethanol, which does in fact produce fewer greenhouse gases when burned than fossil fuels, to make up for the carbon released in that initial landscape conversion. This figure takes into account only land in the United States that has already been converted for ethanol; soy biodiesel that is grown in the Amazon rainforest will take 320 years to make up its energy debt. Ethanol may start saving the environment 400 years from now, but there must be a more effective way that we can implement now.

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Renewable energy powers home of county couple

The price of fuel to warm homes and water in homes over the winter winter has county homeowners looking for an alternative.
A Suttons Bay Township resident made that change 20 years ago.

Now Steve Smiley is looking forward to the day when 100 percent of homes in northwest Lower Michigan are powered by renewable fuel.

“It’s a race against time­— we’re running out of oil, natural gas and uranium,” said Smiley, an energy economist with more than 20 years practical experience in energy efficiency, wind and solar applications.

The 2,400-square-foot home he shares with wife, Susan Kopka, is 99 percent “off the grid.” “This will happen (to all homes) in the next decades. It may be two or four (decades) — but it’s coming soon,” he said.

Construction of Smiley’s home began in 1985 and has continued in stages. Both a 1,600 square-foot main house and 800 square-foot studio area are entirely powered using renewable fuel sources: wind, sun and wood. A seldom-used backup of natural gas is available.

“Our goal is to be 100 percent renewable, we’re not quite there,” he said.

Smiley came of age during the “Energy Crisis” in the 1970s. While many discarded the implementation of alternative energies to fossil fuels as conventional energy costs decreased, Smiley continued to embrace it.

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Biofuels are a double-edged sword

Researchers have discovered a new source for fuel, using hydrogen made from plant sugar. This method may provide the cleanest and cheapest energy source yet.

"Global warming" has become one of those universally notorious villains that is urging the masses into action.

Scientists are attempting to create new and efficient ways to fill fuel tanks, politicians are concocting policies and protocols to abate carbon emissions, and the "average joe is doing all he can to create less pollution.

The question is: what is the total effect of such a trend? The answer lies within the framework of each new discovery, each new policy and each new unfortunate consequence that piggy-backs good intentions.

While some measures, such as the Kyoto Protocol, simply ask for the reduction of pollution, the slew of new biofuel and hydrogen fuel mutants that have been fueling this "green tech" revolution may be causing more harm than good.

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Energy Doubts Cloud Daylight Saving Time

For those of us still rubbing our eyes each day, trying to adjust to the dark March mornings of the new earlier daylight saving time, here are some disappointing figures. Congress decided in 2005 to lengthen daylight saving time by about a month to save energy. But in March 2007—the first year of extended daylight hours—electric power consumption in the United States was 321.2 million megawatt hours—up 1 percent over March 2006, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Even more disturbing: Last October, the other end of the season when we should have been enjoying extended daylight energy savings, electricity use was up 3 percent over the previous year.

Of course, the experts will tell you these raw numbers really are not definitive—they are not adjusted for other factors, such as the increase in population or the differences in weather between 2006 and 2007. Who knows? Without the additional month of daylight saving time, power consumption might have gone up even more. However, the bottom line matters, too. And the plain truth is that the nation's electricity consumption is continuing its annual climb and was up 2 percent in 2007 over 2006.

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